I don’t know about you, but I hate compliments. Don’t get me wrong they are very flattering, but I know as a human being I can let compliments soak in and become very prideful. But my Mema (grandmother) commented on one of my blogs with a compliment that I was able to soak in, and glorify God with.
She said, “Aaron, you have a good heart.” That is exactly right.
The normal comments you will give someone or receive from someone is “Wow, he/she/you are a good person.” There is a big difference between being a good person and having a good heart.
The bible tells us that not one person is good, not even one. If we sin just one time in our life we have fallen short of the only one who is good.
Here is the Gospel. God created us in His image and for the first three chapters of the bible, everything and everyone was good. We sinned against God, and chose to have a separation from Him. You can’t say we are sinful yet have a connection with God, because sin by definition is a separation. God showed us that our sin leads to death, in instances like “If you curse your mother or father you shall be put to death” , but He offers a way out. Many Hebrew prophets like Moses and Isaiah prophesied about the coming of a Messiah and what He would be like and how he would change the nation and close that gap between us and God. Then 2010 years ago Jesus Christ came and fulfilled all of those prophecies and was nailed to a cross so that we didn’t have to reek the punishment for our sins, death.
So here is the thing, God knew we could not make it to heaven by our own works. He created us for good and we failed, and continue to fail everytime we sin. So God says that you can ask Jesus to come into your heart and have a brand new heart, the heart of Christ. So that when you die and reach judgment day, God doesn’t have to look at you with all of your sin, but He can see His Son, who is perfect.
You can believe that Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead, even the demons do. But Paul says that in order to make it to heaven you MUST be born again. You must have God come into your heart and replace your heart with the heart of Christ and be changed from the inside out.
You can go up to heaven and believe that Jesus is God, but if your heart is still your own and full of sin, God still see’s your sin, and not His Son.
So by agreeing with my Mema’s comment that “I have a good heart” is agreeing that I have been born again and my heart is not my own, but the heart of Jesus.
God loves the prideful who can look at God and say they are “good enough”, and He wants them to be born again, and made alive in Him.
